Devil May Cry 5

is the fifth installment of the main Devil May Cry series and the sixth installment overall. The game was formally announced at E3 2018 during the Microsoft Press Conference. Set after the events of Devil May Cry 4, the game follows Nero as he fights off a widespread demon invasion, all the while looking for the cloaked figure who took the Devil Bringer. It was released on 8th March 2019.

Development

 * See also: RE Engine

According to Reuben Langdon, Hideaki Itsuno wanted to leave Capcom after DmC: Devil May Cry, stating that he was not happy and was ready to put in his resignation, however, Capcom didn't want him to leave and asked him what would make him stay in the company. Langdon stated that Itsuno had a "wishlist", and Devil May Cry was at the top of it, Itsuno also stated in an interview that at one point he thought about making a new Dragon's Dogma game instead of a "Devil May Cry 5", which could potentially be linked to this whole situation. In the words of Langdon, Itsuno told Capcom that he'd stay if they let him do a Devil May Cry game the way he wanted to do it.

However, in contrast to Langdon's comments, Itsuno himself has gone on record saying he "really wanted to make a DmC: Devil May Cry 2”. Itsuno even remarked, "I was really pumped up to do it, and then that didn’t happen. So… when it came time to make a new game, we said, alright, let’s make Devil May Cry 5. We had these people that didn’t work on DmC and people that did. Because we had these two sides mixing, it was like alright, we’re going to make Devil May Cry 5 – it’s not going to be a sequel to DmC, but we definitely want to do what we can to take what we learned from that game too."

The game had been in development since at least 2014, one year before the Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition had been released. Itsuno had been working on the game since after DMC4:SE was finished, and the full development team was formed in 2015. Itsuno from the start had a concrete vision of the game: Three playable characters, Nero as the protagonist, and the game starting from the loss of his right arm.

During its development, there was a friendly rivalry between the Devil May Cry 5 and the Resident Evil 2 remake teams, this lead to both teams working their hardest so they wouldn't "lose" to the other.

About a month after the game's announcement at E3 2018, Famitsu released a magazine that covered the development of Devil May Cry 5, in it, it was stated that the game was 75% completed.

The game runs on the RE Engine and uses photorealistic graphics, the developers scanned various models to give a realistic look to the characters and even real clothes which were created in London and scanned in Serbia. The team also traveled to various parts of London in order to create Red Grave City.



Making Nero's new jacket cost as much as a small car, however his accessories were not scanned. The Devil May Cry van took more than an year to make, the developers would even joke at the van feeling like a character due to how much time they spent on it, additionally, the writing on the van is the artist's own handwriting, including the neon sign.

For the character expressions, Capcom used the latest facial technology developed by the Serbian company called 3Lateral, the movement in the game uses motion capture and after that's done, the voice actors record their lines based on the existing video, which makes it easier for them to understand the character's emotions.

The character's faces themselves were planned to be a complete digital double, meaning the character would look exactly like the model it was scanned from. However, Capcom then decided that in order to make the characters look more like their original looks, they needed to change them. This was done after the facial rig was built, so not only did they change the models, but also had to re-do some of the rigging.

Plot
After a hooded man cuts off the Devil Bringer off of Nero in his own home, he sets out to chase him with his new partner Nico, an expert craftswoman, who builds him the Devil Breaker as a replacement. When the two arrive at Red Grave City, they find that a demon tree has invaded the area and started to consume blood off of the residents, Nero believes that the Yamato was the cause of this, as it was part of his Devil Bringer which was stolen.

Nero climbs to the top of the tree, alongside the mysterious V who is helping him, just to see Dante, Trish and Lady fighting the new demon king, Urizen. The trio get easily defeated by the immense power of the king, and Nero escapes the scene with the help of V.

It is later revealed that V was the one who hired Dante and his friends to take down Urizen, however, after they are defeated, V decides to chase down the Devil Sword Sparda. Once acquired, V finds Dante in what it seems like a comatose state, as he's about to stab Dante, he awakens.

Dante then sets off to the Qliphoth, the name of the giant demon tree. Its size has increased significantly by this point, and all the blood that's been consumed by it has spawned a fruit which imbues a demon with divine power. Trish states that even Mundus needed it to become the king of the Underworld.

When he arrives at one of the lower levels of the tree, he reunites with Lady, Trish, Nico, and then V and Nero also make an appearance. It is at this point that Nico reveals to Dante that she is actually the granddaugher of Nell Goldstein, the creator of the Ebony & Ivory.

Dante, V and Nero now split up and make their separate ways onto the demon tree. Dante arrives at the inner most chamber first, while Nero helps V, who is slowly getting weaker. At this point, V tells Nero that there is no demon called Urizen, and that the person behind this whole ordeal is Dante's brother, Nero, shocked at the fact, listens to what V has to say. He states that the man's name is Vergil, and that he gave up everything for power.

While this is happening, Dante is fighting Urizen at an illusion area which looks to be where the two brothers used to live when they were children. Despite Dante trying to reason with Urizen (Vergil), noting their mother's sacrifice to save them, Urizen ignores him and feasts upon the fruit, gaining even more power. However, Dante is able to defeat him even after having consumed the fruit. During this weak state, V and Nero arrive at the scene. When V sees Urizen laying on the ground, on his last breath, he comes up to him and stabs his chest, which makes V reunite with his own demonic self... as it turns out, V was Vergil's "human side" all along, and with this, Vergil comes back to life and appears in front of Dante and Nero.



When this happens, the illusion at the Qliphoth fades away, and Vergil opens up a portal to the apex of the tree and leaves the demon hunters after stating that Dante needs to rest so they can fight again. Dante, making his way to the top of the tree, asks Nero to leave as this isn't his business. Nero shuts down the request and demands to help Dante defeat Vergil because he lost his own arm. However, Dante straight up tells Nero that Vergil is his father. Nero, confused at what he had just heard, could not believe it. Dante tells him that when he saw how the Yamato reacted to him, he was sure of it, and that he couldn't let Nero kill his own father.

While making his way to the top of the Qliphoth, Dante meets V's Familiars one last time, however, they are hostile against him, but are eventually killed to "end Vergil's suffering". Finally arriving at the top, Vergil is seen simply sitting down on a small root. The brothers fight yet again.



Nero, who was also making him way up the Qliphoth, finds a broken phone on his way up. He calls Kyrie in search for help, and it is granted. Kyrie reassures Nero about his decisions, and her response gives him the confidence he needed to face his father. While he was reaching out to the top of the tree, his missing arm blows the Overture Devil Breaker off of him, and a new arm simply grows out of it. This new power awakens Nero's Devil Trigger, and he arrives at the climax of the brothers' fight, stopping the two at once.

Nero states that neither one of them will die, and that this vendetta will end once and for all. When Dante tries to tell Nero again that their rivalry does not concern him, he gets suckerpunched and is so surprised by Nero's new powers that he sarcastically states that it almost killed him. Nero and Vergil start their own fight. In the end, after being bested by Nero, Vergil and Dante make a truce due to the Qliphoth tree, stating that need to go to hell to kill it once and for all. Nero doesn't accept this because the two would be stuck there forever, but the brothers go anyway.



After finding the main root of the Qliphoth, the two brothers start cutting it down. After it's been done, they start fighting again, this time keep track of their scores, however, some demons arrive and intrude their little "game". The two brothers then set it aside and start fighting the demons together.

Gameplay
The gameplay revolves around three playable characters; Nero, Dante and the newcomer V.



At first, Nero wields a cybernetic prosthetic called "Devil Breaker" with multiple different types which differ greatly. All Devil Breakers have one "Break Away" move however which is supposed to be its most impactful attack, upon using the this move, the Devil Breaker will be broken and gone.

Upon finishing the game, Nero gains his Devil Trigger and a new Devil Bringer, which is always equipped by default. The Devil Bringer behaves similarly to that of its Devil May Cry 4 iteration, but one key difference is that while Nero's Devil Trigger is active, any Snatch move will try to pick up two enemies instead of only one.



Nero's signature Red Queen and Blue Rose make a comeback, this time with some upgrades. the Red Queen keeps it's Exceed gameplay mechanic, but various new moves have been added to it. The Blue Rose however is much more different than its Devil May Cry 4 counterpart, at first, its charge shot skill is almost done instantly, and three quick, powerful bullets can be fired. When it's not charged, the gun is weak and its fire rate is slower than in Devil May Cry 4, however, upon finishing the game once, the player unlocks the classic Devil May Cry 4 charge shot, where the fully charged bullet deals heavy damage and explodes after a few seconds.

Dante's loadout in Devil May Cry 5 is heavily expanded, he has access to a total of 12 weapons, but only 4 Styles due to the Yamato being with Nero then stolen by Vergil, which prohibits the use of the Dark Slayer Style.

To know more about Dante's gameplay and his weapons or styles, see the designated pages:


 * Ebony & Ivory
 * Coyote-A
 * Kalina Ann
 * Kalina Ann II
 * Double Kalina Ann
 * Dr. Faust


 * Rebellion
 * Cavaliere
 * Devil Sword Sparda
 * Devil Sword Dante
 * Devil Sword Dante


 * Trickster
 * Swordmaster
 * Gunslinger
 * Royalguard

V's gameplay is distinctively different than Dante's, Nero's, or any other playable character of the Devil May Cry series. Instead of attacking enemies head-on, V has to rely on his three familiars, and once an enemy has taken enough damage, they must be finished off by V himself using the cane.

V's Devil Trigger is replaced by simply, while Nightmare is on the field, neither or  can be stalemated, however, V does not recover health while Nightmare is active, but there are skills the player can buy which increase the amount of Green Orbs V obtains while Nightmare is fighting.



V's book also has its own purpose during gameplay, while reading the book, V regenerates Devil Trigger. The closer V is to enemies, the faster the DT will regenerate.

In addition, V's Cane can be used in a rapid succession to kill multiple enemies in a fast streak. When V deals the finishing blow on an enemy, pressing the Cane button at the same time as the finishing animation will make V teleport to the next enemy. V can also spawn multiple canes around him, which guarantees the finishing blow on multiple enemies at once, leaving V safe.

Pre release
Upon its announcement at E3 2018, the game received a positive response from the fanbase. The feedback towards the game's demo shown at various game conventions was also overwhelmingly positive.

The E3 trailer's theme song, Devil Trigger, which is also Nero's main battle theme in the game, reached the number one top song in the United Kingdom's iTunes. Dante's equivalent, Subhuman, had a generally negative reception from fans, its official music video had a high dislike ratio before it was eventually deleted from the official DMC YouTube channel. The song's vocals ended up being changed due to some allegations towards the original vocalist, Eddie Hermida.

Following Gamescom 2018, Devil May Cry 5 won the "Best PC game" and "Game of the Show" awards from DualShockers.

After TGS 2018, Devil May Cry 5 won the "Future Division" award from the Japan Game Awards as well as multiple awards from DualShockers including: Game of the Show, Best Xbox One game, Best PS4 game and Best PC game. However, on September 22, 2018, one day before TGS ended, a GameSpot article reported that the game would have microtransactions, this caused concerns from the community, even after producer Matthew Walker responded to multiple questions over the matter on Twitter and a DualShockers article made clear how many Red Orbs the player is able to earn through natural play , many fans still remain skeptical about how these would be implemented in the final game.

On September 2018, Devil May Cry 5 was the top pre-ordered game on the PS4 and the 4th game at the global top seller list on Steam.

On January 2019, the Devil May Cry 5 Xbox Exclusive Demo had a 4.4/5 score on the Microsoft Store, with 74% of users giving it a perfect score. A month later, when the multiplatform demo was released, players quickly realized that the inertia element present in Devil May Cry 4 was gone, which caused some controversy within the community. Users frustrated with the change started tweeting under the #DMC5Inertia hashtag in order to raise awareness.

Before the game was officially released on March 7th-8th, 2019, reviews from multiple sources were posted on the internet with high scores. The game's Metacritic rating was 88 at the time (Xbox One version).

Post release
Shortly after its release, Devil May Cry 5 was the top watched game on Twitch. Its launch on PC (Steam) was the second best for Capcom after Monster Hunter: World, surpassing Resident Evil 2 (2019). The game had a ~88K concurrent player count at the time, with the Resident Evil 2 remake having 74k and Monster Hunter: World having more than 300K concurrent players at one point after its launch.

The PlayStation 4 version of the game was censored due to new Sony policies, but only in the west, the Japanese version of the game on the PlayStation 4 remained unchanged. However, on April 1st, 2019, Patch 1.07 was released which made the Bloody Palace playable, this patch also removed the censorship in the Mission 11 cutscene where Trish is shown naked.

In Japan, the PS4 version of the game sold 75.75% of its Initial retail shipment, with an opening of 116,202 units sold. For comparison, the original release of Devil May Cry 4 sold 205,390 units on the PS3, its Special Edition sold 35,872 units on the PS4, and DmC Devil May Cry sold 110,429 units on the PS3, all in Japan and retail numbers.



At the Game Developers Conference 2019, Hideaki Itsuno stated that the game had sold 2 million copies by that point. Shortly after this however, Itsuno stated in an interview with The Verge that Devil May Cry 5 didn't feel "like a home run" and that he was "on second base or third base", which is a reference to what he said in an Archipel interview, where he wanted to "hit a home run, hit it out of the park” before the end of his career.

While the Devil May Cry 5 Demo had no inertia, it actually had the "reversal" tech, which is not entirely present in the full version of the game. This caused some concern within the community, similar to the small "#DMC5Inertia" movement. During an official livestream on April 1st, 2019 meant to promote the release of the Bloody Palace mode, Matthew Walker was asked about this, he stated that the Devil May Cry 5 Demo was on an older build of the game, which dates back to the original Gamescom 2018 demo (which was the first playable demo of the game), when the developers were bug testing, they found that people were accidentaly performing the reversal, so this caused them to remove this mechanic.

On March 2019, Devil May Cry 5 won the Players' Choice poll hosted by PlayStation where it topped the second place held by Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice by just 13 votes.

Trivia

 * This game marks a first for many:
 * The first time Eva (besides being showcased in DmC) is ever shown in-game as well as the childhood home of the Sons of Sparda
 * The first time material outside of the games is either mentioned or fully integrated into the lore, from "Tony Redgrave" being Dante's alias rather than just a name written on his guns, to characters like Morrison and Patty from the anime.
 * The first instance of an official timeline being used for the story.
 * The first time more than two playable characters share a unified campaign
 * The first instance of multiplayer elements.
 * The first time in canon where Dante and related characters talk during Devil Trigger outside of cutscenes.
 * The first time where a character isn't in the game's logo.
 * The first time it is acknowledged in the game mechanics that Ebony & Ivory are different to each other, when using Gunslinger Style.
 * It also marks the return of many long-gone elements:
 * Dante actually using Sparda and several classic enemies include the Nobody and Death Scissors have not been seen since DMC1.
 * The Trigger Heart, Dante having a second, more powerful Devil Trigger and Dante having a choice between multiple swords have not been seen since DMC2.
 * The game has several references to and concepts inspired by DmC: Devil May Cry:
 * Nico jamming a cigarette in a demon's face, akin to the other Dante doing the same in the very first promo for DmC.
 * Dante's EX color is patterned after his counterpart.
 * Vergil's Doppelganger as well as his overall fighting style takes some cues from his alternate version, not only holding the Yamato face up but even using a Helm Breaker-like technique along with Yamato's ability to cut open portals to travel between areas.
 * Vergil's first use of Doppelganger is even accompanied by Dante repeating the "not in a million years" line from DmC.
 * The cowboy hat Dr. Faust is a possible reference to the controversial in-house promo of DmC where the Dante of Devil May Cry 4 was photoshopped into a shot from Brokeback Mountain.
 * Nero's new appearance as well as his tendency to use more vulgar swear words also harkens back to Dante's DmC counterpart.
 * V's default black hair color changing to white when in Devil Trigger.
 * An announcer calling out Stylish Ranks.